Examples of conventionally used chemotherapeutic agents for cancer include alkylating agents such as cyclophosphamide, antimetabolites such as methotrexate and fluorouracil, antibiotics such as adriamycin, mitomycin and bleomycin, plant-derived taxol, vincristine and etoposide and metal complexes such as cisplatin. None of them, however, provides sufficient antitumor effect, and thus development of a novel antitumor drug has been strongly desired.
Recently, 4-(4-methylpiperazine-1-ylmethyl)-N-[4-methyl-3-[4-(3-pyridyl)pyrimidine-2-ylamino]phenyl]benzenamide (hereinafter, also referred to as “imatinib” or “STI571”) is known as a c-kit inhibitor (Documents 1 and 2).
In addition, 4-(3-chloro-4-(cyclopropylaminocarbonyl)aminophenoxy)-7-methoxy-6-quinolinecarboxamide is known as a VEGF receptor kinase inhibitor (Document 3-4).
However, it has not been elucidated yet what kind of antitumor effect can or cannot be obtained with a pharmaceutical composition containing a combination of these substances.